Music distribution: What every artist needs to know

Distributing music is about more than making something available; it’s about making an impact.

Whether you’re about to release your first single or you’re a Grammy-winner putting out your 20th studio album, you need distribution for your music, plain and simple.

The songs have to move from A to Z, from here to there, from you to your listeners. The problem is your listeners access music in dozens of different ways, in hundreds of different places. That’s where music distribution comes in.

Let’s break it down.

What is music distribution?

Google tells me that “distribution” is:

the action of sharing something out among a number of recipients.

the action or process of supplying goods to stores and other businesses that sell to consumers.

Music distribution is both of those things. A third-party such as CD Baby takes your music and handles:

Physical distribution, making your CDs and vinyl available to a network of record stores (both online and “brick and mortar,” the kind you can walk into).

Digital distribution, making your music available to download platforms and streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora Premium, Amazon, etc.

Additional monetization services, helping you earn money for the usage of your music on YouTube, Facebook, in TV shows, and more.

Why do I need a distributor for my music?

Another way to ask this is, “Why can’t an unsigned artist get their songs onto Spotify and Apple Music directly?”

To put it simply, you as the artist are not their customer. Your fans are their customers. These companies don’t want to take on the substantial customer service and development burden of dealing directly with millions of musicians. That’s where distributors come in.

At CD Baby, our principle client is YOU — and we create the systems, artist tools, communication channels, and informational resources you need so you can upload your music ONCE and make it available worldwide in a successful way.

Imagine having to create separate accounts and upload your music and artwork files for each and every digital music platform! Imagine the accounting headaches! Imagine the emails in your inbox!

CD Baby serves as a buffer between the creator of the music and the outlets that make that music available. But more importantly for you, we save you — the artist or label — a ton of time and work.

The ten most valuable aspects of music distribution through CD Baby

“Valuable” differs depending on your needs of course, but there are ten high-level benefits CD Baby provides to musicians:

1. A wide partner network of DSPs and media outlets

You want to make sure that when your music gets out there, it gets OUT there, worldwide, in every possible place listeners are looking for you. CD Baby will deliver your music to 100+ services, so you can rest easy that you’ve got coverage.

But let’s be real. To varying degrees based on your genre and location, most of your activity is going to come from a handful of giants.

Some of the most important digital music services in the United States are:

Spotify – The leader in interactive music streaming, with both paid subscription and ad-supported options.

That being said, many of the other services we’re partnered with are big outside of the US, and you definitely want to make your music available in those places, even if you don’t see much activity on those platforms initially. Platforms rise and fall in popularity with some frequency, so be everywhere and you won’t miss out.

2. Speedy (but verified) music delivery to digital platforms

CD Baby has long-standing relationships with the big digital music platforms, and we’ve developed a distribution system that combines fast delivery with manual (human!) inspection of every release, so if you spelled a track title incorrectly or listed the wrong publisher for a cover song, we’ll catch it!

Yes, CD Baby can deliver your music to our digital partners in a heartbeat, but are you really rushing your release so quickly that you need it live RIGHT NOW with zero strategy?

Let’s plan this out. Let’s spend some time so you can take advantage of all the opportunities CD Baby can offer, including:

All of this is done with one mission in mind: empower artists, let them keep their rights and decide what’s best for their own careers, and pay them every single week. We’re immensely proud of the service we’ve provided for two decades now, and every day we feel honored by the 650k+ musicians who’ve entrusted us with one of the most important things in their lives, their own music.

Because of that history there is trust, experience, expertise, and influence — all used on behalf of you the artist to open up new opportunities as the music industry continues, inevitably, to change. This is why we’ve proven to be the industry leader time and time again.

4. A sensible fee structure

There’s a cycle of growth and decline for every music release. This is the nature of things.

You don’t want to pay a large annual fee in order to keep your music on digital download and streaming platforms once sales for that older material are on the decline. Those annual fees can add up; the larger your catalog gets, the more you pay each year to keep all your music available.

You definitely don’t want to feel the pressure ten years down the line to drop another few hundred bucks in annual fees, otherwise your older stuff which is no longer selling that well is gonna get removed!

The smarter approach is to release a lot of music, build your catalog over a lifetime, put all that music to work for you, and NOT worry about annual fees. That’s why CD Baby partners with you; we only make money when you do (beyond our initial setup fee, of course).

5. Robust services

With CD Baby’s standard distribution, you get much more than digital distribution to outlets like iTunes and Spotify.

With CD Baby, you get digital distribution plus:

physical distribution of your CDs or vinyl

warehousing of physical product and direct-to-fan order fulfillment

YouTube monetization

Facebook monetization

sync licensing

free online marketing tools

and more

With our CD Baby Pro Publishing package you get all of that plus worldwide publishing rights administration, helping you collect global publishing royalties that would otherwise be very difficult (if not impossible) to collect without a publisher, including:

All mechanical royalties from Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming sites. These are generated from every single stream

All international mechanical royalties from download stores like iTunes. These are generated from every single sale

All performance royalties from streaming services (like Spotify), radio, TV, live concert performances and much more

Global YouTube publishing administration for any video on YouTube that contains your music

Hundreds of other sources of songwriting and publishing royalties from around the world

6. Clean and detailed metadata assurances

All indicators point to the fact that we’re approaching an era where digital outlets will demand correct and thorough details about every track on their platform, including songwriter info, publishing splits, and more.

Luckily for you, CD Baby has been requesting this kind of information from our artist and label clients for years and years. While that might take you a few more minutes to complete the submission form, it also means you’ve taken care of something that will almost certainly be required by digital services down the line.

7. Curatorial and editorial reach

We don’t just send your music to our partners and wish you the best. We want to find the most noteworthy releases, the best new music, the overlooked gems of our catalog, and tell the world about it.

Here’s how:

Hundreds of thousands of music-buyers receive our Discover Music newsletter.

We also have a team that is dedicated to finding and promoting the best new releases to our digital partners’ editorial teams, seeking opportunities for official Spotify playlist placements, iTunes banners, and more. You can submit your music for consideration HERE.

8. Accessible artist support

We’re approachable. You can get a hold of us. We have a detailed online Help Center so you can get your questions answered 24/7. You can email us and we’ll respond quickly. And yes, you can call us to talk on the phone (during PST business hours).

We also host frequent artist meetups and organize two big DIY Musician Conferences, one in Nashville and one in Valencia, Spain. Come hang out in person!

9. Strategic release options

As I mentioned above, with a few months’ notice and smart planning we can work together to get the most out of your releases.

Some of our strategic release options include:

Targeted physical distribution with advance notice to one-stop distributors and catalogs, letting them know that your CDs will be available, where you’re touring, etc.

setting up pre-sales and pre-saves so you can get your fans to actually DO something with your music before its release

getting songs into our sync licensing catalog for both pre-licensed options and pitching to music supervisors

editorial pitches (as mentioned above)

and much more

Pre-sales on iTunes and Amazon allow you to capture download sales in advance of the release (usually a month in advance, though the window can vary). Your fans get one “instant grat” track at the time of the pre-sale, and then their card is charged and they receive the full album download on the release date. All pre-sales are tallied as first day sales, so you greatly increase your chances of charting.

A pre-save campaign on Spotifyis similar to a download pre-sale campaign. Your fans click “pre-save” and your new track will be saved to the listener’s queue. On the drop date, the music will be there waiting for them to hear it. Pre-saves can really boost your first day streaming activity, which juices the Spotify algorithm and helps your chances of being placed in algorithmic playlists such as Release Radar and Discover Weekly.

Pro marketing campaigns through Show.co (available for free to CD Baby clients) give you an elegant and effective way to drive specific action with your music, videos, news announcements, and more. These campaigns are easy to create, and can help you:

build your Spotify following

boost streams on Spotify

increase plays on YouTube

encourage engagement on SoundCloud

grow your email list

and more

10. Development for the future of the music business

We’ve been around, broken down barriers, and continued to expand our industry-leading services, paying artists every single Monday for twenty years.

Part of the reason why we’re the most trusted independent music distributor is because we’ve always kept our eyes on what problems will face musicians tomorrow, and what opportunities will arise as the industry keeps shifting.

With CD Baby, you know we’re always looking for new ways to help you make money from your music.

CD Baby gives you so much more than just digital music distribution

CD Baby offers the most valuable music monetization services (not just distribution) in a way that makes the most financial sense for indie artists. I’m really proud that we’re now celebrating our 20th year at the forefront of independent music distribution, offering artists without the muscle of a major label the chance to reach listeners through:

Digital distribution to DSPs (“digital service provider”) such as Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, TIDAL, and more

Physical distribution of CDs and vinyl to over 15k record stores worldwide

Online order fulfillment for direct-to-fan sales

YouTube monetization

Music publishing administration

Sync licensing

Free online music marketing tools used by the major labels

And more

I hope you’ll consider us for your next release, because yes, we can deliver your music lightning-fast to 100+ music platforms, but mostly for all the other stuff we provide — the extra reach, the manual metadata inspection, the strategic release options. That “other” stuff is anything but extra. It’s the difference between making something available and making an impact.

In this article

... is the Editor of CD Baby's DIY Musician Blog. I write Beatlesque indie-pop songs that've been praised by No Depression, KCRW, The LA Times, & others. My poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Poetry Review, & more. I live in Maine and like peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, a little too much.